Knoxville Musicians, Artists, and Writers Comment on Neil Young

Neil Young performs in Knoxville tonight.

A bunch of local Knoxville musicians were asked about their favorite Neil Young albums.

Here's a small sample and check out other opinions on Hey Hey, My My: Knoxville Musicians, Artists, and Writers Comment on Neil Young : Music : Metro Pulse by Eric Dawson, Lee Gardner, Jack Neely, and Coury Turczyn:

“Motion Pictures" - On the Beach (Reprise, 1974)

My favorite Neil Young song?

That depends. Which album? See, the man made albums, all different and with this attitude of I-don’t-care-if-the-critics-get-it-or-you-even-like-it. True Neil fans will argue all night over his best album: Harvest? (Frat boys.) Tonight’s the Night? (Stoners.) After the Gold Rush? (Folkies.) American Stars ’n Bars? (Country rockers.) Time Fades Away? (Really stoners.) Or my favorite, On the Beach. Before I continue, I must say those are my top five albums, and each one has songs or even individual lines that speak to the listener: “It’s a cold bowl of chili when love lets you down,” from “Saddle Up the Palomino” on Stars ’n Bars. Hell, I’ll even drop a needle on Trans (techies) or Everybody’s Rockin’ (’50s rockers) but only once, only once, on Landing on Water. Neil, if you are reading this, regarding that album: WTF?

So it’s the album I owned on 8-track and left on the “endless” setting—the 1974 release On the Beach and the song “Motion Pictures,” a song I still cover, although sometimes I substitute “I hear the valley is doing fine” for the line “I hear the mountains are doing fine.” It painted life on the road (and not in a flattering light) before I even became a road denizen. And it has a message to your friends who chose a “normal” path: “All those people who think they’ve got it made, I wouldn’t buy, sell borrow or trade/anything I have to be like one of them/I’d rather start all over again.” That album is so depressing, even compared to other albums of Neil’s, but it leaves me with this sense of hope. “Newspaper headlines, they just bore me now/I’m deep inside myself but I will get out somehow.” I don’t know if he got out, but he got in me. Damn Canadian. I think of that album every time I’m on the road staring down a hotel television and drifting away for even a moment: “Motion pictures on my TV screen/A home away from home and I’m living in between.”

—Singer/songwriter Scott Miller

More on Hey Hey, My My: Knoxville Musicians, Artists, and Writers Comment on Neil Young : Music : Metro Pulse.

Also, see Neil Young fans favorite albums.

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